Mexican Drug Cartel Violence in USA

Mexico has been a producer and transit route for drugs for generations and the drug gang with their violence is at an all time high. American has some responsibility in its high demand for cocaine. The drug lords wouldn’t be millionaires without Americans buying their products. At the same time the drug cartels are buying assault rifles from America illegally.

The violence in Mexico really heated up in 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched an assault on the drug gangs with tens of thousands of soldiers. The violence has continued to grow and continues pushing into the US, primarily Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

While visiting Mexico as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.” While we know that is true, it sounds like the US is again apologizing to another country, who could care less if illegal aliens cross the border to the US.

Mrs. Clinton also made a pledge that the administration would seek $80 million from Congress to provide Mexican authorities with 2 Black Hawk helicopters to help the police track drug runners. But wait a second; the US gave Mexico $197 million to battle the cartels in December, 2008, as 4000 had been murdered that year. Mexico has also been given 8 helicopters, not one of them has been seen patrolling the border.

The White House then announced that they would deploy 450 more law enforcement officials to the border, which is the first move they have made to help secure the border as the border patrol agents are too few in number. Napolitano cancelled the building of the border fence in March as the contractor apparently couldn’t seem to get the camera and monitoring devices to work. It sounds like they might have hired the wrong company, but illegal aliens have been quite capable of climbing over the fence anyway.

The Merida Initiative will provide equipment and training in support of law enforcement and was initiated under President Bush with the transfer of $1.5 billion in aid to Mexico to fight the war on drugs. The bulk of that amount came in the form of military hardware, like helicopters and CASA patrol planes but only about one fifth of the money went to anti-corruption and training programs in Mexico.

The Obama administration was delighted to continue this program with another $310 million promised for 2011. Doesn’t he know we have a deficit that is obscene? China has quit loaning us money. Didn't he know we just keep printing the bills without anything to back them up? Where does this end? Mexico obviously could care less about protecting their northern border, because it isn’t like anyone is sneaking across in their direction other than gun runners.

Mexico gives the impression that they are so poor, but that is really not true. Their economy is better than we have been led to believe. They have oil, although the output has declined some over the past 3 years with PEMEX having exclusive rights. Since the Mexican government treats PEMEX as a major source of revenue, the company does not have enough money to continue to develop new and more expensive resources on its own, and they cannot take on foreign partners.

There are other oil fields available, like the Chicontepec Field, containing 40% or their remaining resource, but as it is under impermeable rock they need advance technology to reach the oil. The government seems unable to sort their priorities in a logical fashion.

However, the Mexican unemployment rate has dropped to 3.8% as of 2017. Mexico is ranked #16 in GDP, higher than 172 other countries. Mexico has more billionaires than Germany. A few years ago Mexico was upset with Forbes Magazine for listing the Mexican drug lord, Joaquín Gusmán, El Chapo, on its richest people, but he is a billionaire!

Mexico has a huge manufacturing base, in electronics, and there is a Border Assembly Corporation in San Diego that has helped more than 70 American and international manufacturing firms start up and operate successfully. There are many other large manufacturing companies including Leviton, 3M, Rheem and many others. The manufacturing base continues to grow steadily.

In addition, their agriculture products include corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, cotton, coffee, fruit, tomatoes; beef, poultry, dairy products; wood products. Since Mexico has all these new companies, and plenty of agricultural work, why don’t the immigrants move south to the cities of Mexico rather than enter the US illegally?

According to Wikipedia, "While less than 2% of Mexico's population lives below the international poverty line set by the World Bank, as of 2013, Mexico's government estimates that 33% of Mexico's population lives in moderate poverty and 9% lives in extreme poverty,^[3] which leads to 42% of Mexico's total population living below the national poverty line."

Since 1929, illegal entry into the US has been a federal crime and if you are caught you may receive up to 6 months in prison, caught a second time and you can get a 20 year sentence. Hiring illegal immigrants carries a maximum penalty under federal statue of 5 years in prison and a $250,000.

Yet, hidden cameras along the Arizona border watched thousands of immigrants cross the border last month basically unimpeded. There are 22,761,397 illegal immigrants in our country; while 579,234 of them have other nationalities beside Mexican. What good is this law when it isn’t used? How can sanctuary cities be legal?

Our former DHS Secretary Napolitano tells a Congressional committee, “I know the border I think as well as anyone.” Well, you decide if she is doing her job. Arizona was at a desperate point when they enacted the new controversial bill, SB 1070. Drop houses, kidnappings and violence have escalated to unprecedented proportions and compromised the safety of the Arizona population.

In December, 2017, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was able to hire and train 5,000 new Border Patrol agents after being awarded a $297 million contract. Despite this increase, Border Guards have been injured and killed. The surge of illegals attempting to cross the border is an ongoing problem.

The president is fighting to build the border fence with much resistance from the Democratic congressmen. The cost is estimated to be $21,6 billion. View the area where the fence would be most effective along our southwest border.

The border is a major problem and the immigrants are coming in by the thousands each month, particularly given the crime rates have risen so rapidly and kidnapping, murders and Mexican violent gangs in many cities are part of the outcome.

We need to secure our borders, and use the laws already written. Sanctuary cities house illegal aliens that have broken laws, which puts those who live there in danger. The problems are numerous, and the solutions are difficult.